I am hoping you can give me a little help. I am giving a talk on atheism this Thursday. I have the it completed and rehearsed. I have decided to pump it up a little with a couple of Harris’ quotes:

“The core of science is not a mathematical model—it is intellectual honesty.”

“I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.”

I have found a gazillion websites that refer to these and attribute them to Sam Harris, but I can’t find the references. I really like these quotes, and I feel they really hit at the heart of the matter, but I don’t want to use them without proper citations.

Does anyone have a clue where and when, or in what publication these can be found? Or if you are reading this Sam, perhaps you can just confirm you said them ( I would think a personal note from Sam Harris would do the trick!)

They sound reasonably authentic. Could be from the blog. This would be the place to look. Aren’t you worrying about it too much?

Hi, thanks for the response. I will see if I can find them on the blog. They are great quotes.

As for worrying about this too much, I wonder why those on the internet aren’t worried about it at all? I mean this is high school English composition class type of stuff. If you quote someone, you provide the citation; that way people can look it up and know you are not making it all up. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that when I give a presentation or write a paper, I don’t want to look like a high school drop out. I mean we are rational, educated people, right? Shouldn’t we act like we are rational, educated people?

Well, that is my rant for today. Thanks for reading! Thanks for your suggestion